


Equinox

by Oodles



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Amnesia, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:07:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27336157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oodles/pseuds/Oodles
Summary: After a near-fatal shot to the head, Rude decides to protect Reno from Shinra, and Reno tries to put the pieces back together.
Relationships: Reno/Rude (Compilation of FFVII)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 118





	Equinox

**Author's Note:**

> This was hugely inspired by (@agikun) Bril's whumptober "memory loss" art with Rude and Reno. It was a lovely and sad piece, and me being me, I had to give it a complication and a happy ending.

There is nothing in his eyes. The longer Rude stares at Reno, the worse it feels. A nurse checks on his vitals and Reno’s gaze is gone, staring at the wall with absolutely no emotion. 

“How’s your pain?” the nurse asks.

Reno just shrugs. 

“Scale of one to ten?”

“Hm.” Reno’s eyelids flutter for a moment. “Eight.”

The nurse tuts and goes over how to adjust the pain medication. She’s phenomenally unconcerned for dealing with a patient with such broad memory loss, though Rude imagines they’re all just strangers to her. She’s got more in common with Reno now, huh? 

Rude is frozen against the wall. As soon as Reno asked him, _who are you_ , Rude hasn’t been able to get closer. He can’t. If he does, he’ll have to reckon with the decade of time that just vanished. Hours, weeks, months, years, gone in the blink of an eye; the loudest gunshot Rude has ever heard. He’s not sure he’s stopped hearing it, actually. Like he’s been watching Reno’s head crack open in slow motion since it happened. 

“So, what are you, then? A lawyer or something?”

Rude’s gaze snaps back onto Reno’s, anchoring him into this reality, where the man closest to him doesn’t recognize him anymore. 

Reno looks up at Rude with the most clarity he’s had since waking up. He’s probably feeling the pain meds more than anything else right now, and his blue eyes look almost snowy with the drugs. 

“You never answered me,” Reno prompts. 

That’s right, he didn’t. The nurse showed up and Rude couldn’t say anything, not with how heavy this truth sat on his shoulders.

“No,” Rude says. 

“Family?” Reno asks. “Do I… have a family?” 

Reno’s gaze drifts away, brows cinched, and Rude’s jaw works as he tries to figure out what the hell to say. This person in Reno’s body, who is not Reno at all anymore. 

Voice quiet, Reno mumbles to himself, “I hope I don’t have a family. The fuck would I even say to them?”

Rude pushes off from the wall as the nurse collects her things. She gives Rude a sidelong glance, and he nods at her to get going. She must be nervous treating one of the Turks, moreso when one of them is watching her work, but Rude couldn’t wait to bring Reno all the way back to HQ. He was too unstable, and now they’re in a lower four hospital to ride out the worst of it. 

The nurse slides the door shut behind her and Rude takes a cautious step closer. Still, nothing in Reno’s face even suggests he knows _how_ to react to Rude. No fear, no familiarity, no excitement, no confusion, just pure apathy. 

“Do you have any memories of Shinra Incorporated?” Rude asks him.

Reno’s brows furrow. “They’re like… the guys who own everything, right? Oh shit, did I piss them off?”

Rude nearly bites his tongue to keep from reacting to that. It could have been funny, if it wasn’t this exact situation. _Maybe Reno’s humor is still in there._

“It’s not like that,” Rude says.

Reno is watching him so intently, and it clicks that Reno is waiting for Rude to tell him anything that will make this make sense. Bad news or good news, Reno wants a path forward, and Rude is the only person with a key at the moment. There’s something so open about Reno’s expression. Something Rude has never seen in him before. Of course, Reno’s been curious a thousand times, but to see it here so pure and simple is almost _sweet_.

Reno doesn’t remember Shinra. He doesn’t remember why he got shot, or who put him there, or why he would ever have accepted that fate with any kind of peace in his eyes. 

He probably doesn’t even remember what a gun feels like, or the taste of blood, or the childhood robbed from him; terrible secrets spilled to Rude over too much alcohol; the things Reno put himself through just to feel like he had a good reason to fight so recklessly. 

Rude takes a deep breath, letting himself experiment with a tiny seed of hope.

“You don’t have any living relatives,” Rude says. “But you do have me.”

Reno’s lips part, eyes going round. Clear blue skies. 

“I’m here to help,” Rude says, conviction finally entering his voice for the first time since his partner got shot in front of him a day ago. 

_He has never looked so unburdened in our entire partnership._

“Like, uh,” Reno stumbles his way into his words. “Medically or… legally?”

“Anything you need,” Rude says. “Let’s just say I have a broad set of skills. Shinra is the reason you’re here. As far as I see it, it’s my job to make sure this never happens again.”

Reno’s breath leaves him in a puff and he almost smiles, leaning back on his hands. Soon as he does, though, his left eye twitches and he sits up again, reaching to cradle his head. “Yeah, I sure hope I don't get shot twice in one life.” 

Rude refrains from telling him that this was in no way the first time he’s ever been shot, or brutally hospitalized, or near-fatally injured on the job.

“I’ll help you get back to normal,” Rude assures him.

Reno’s fingers gently skirt into his hair before he touches something tender with a wince, and puts his hands back in his lap. “Normal, huh?”

Rude has a strange feeling in his chest, something completely alien that he wasn’t prepared to feel at that moment. “We’ll figure out what normal is for you.”

Reno looks back up at him, and even though he’s in pain from a wound that almost killed him, lost in a way Rude can only imagine, he has this half-smile on. “Wish I could warn you what you just signed up for, but I guess we’ll find out together if I’m annoying or boring or whatever. I’m just glad _some_ one knows what’s going on.”

He gives a tiny laugh before he winces again from something in his head, and Rude lurches forward to help Reno lay back down. When he touches Reno’s shoulders, and Reno just lets Rude touch him, like he did with the nurse, it does feel like Rude’s been stabbed— there is truly nothing personal between them anymore. And yet, when Rude brushes Reno’s ponytail out from under his head, offering him the blankets he’d kicked off earlier, Reno gives this sleepy smile. 

“Thanks… what do I call you? Nurse? Doc? Handyman? Government supplied jack-of-all-trades?”

Reno laughs at his own joke as he paws at the button for pain meds, and Rude almost laughs with him, but his body hasn’t quite remembered how. 

“Call me whatever you like,” Rude says. 

Reno’s eyes are barely open as he says, “At least give me your name.”

“It’s Rude,” he says.

“What’s rude?” Reno asks, eyes shut. He laughs quietly. “Sorry, still learning the ropes I guess.”

Before Rude can piece together a response, or decide if he wants to leave this place and never come back, Reno is asleep in his hospital bed. The bandages over his head need changing. Ignoring the nausea in his stomach and the ice water creeping over his skin, Rude pulls the blankets up higher over Reno’s chest and sits back down.

He knows Tseng is outside, saw him hovering like the shadow of death in the halls when the nurse left, but Rude isn’t ready yet. Just a few more minutes. Let Reno sleep for just a few more minutes. 

Even with the bandage, Reno looks so peaceful. There were times before when Rude had the same thought: how completely at-ease Reno always looked when he slept. Before, it always struck Rude as these fleeting precious moments. The _only_ time Reno could ever be so empty. But now. 

Now, maybe things are different. Maybe he has a chance to look like that when he’s awake. 

The door slides back open and Rude feels the knife twist as Tseng steps into the room and closes the door once again. He’s in plainclothes, which is the smallest bit of relief. Not working again quite yet.

“They’ve already issued an order to return him to Shinra,” Tseng says quietly.

Rude stands up to look Tseng in the eyes. “I’m not taking him back. I can’t.”

Tseng meets his gaze. “So it’s true? He has nothing left of us?”

Rude’s tongue twitches before he can say it. “Nothing.”

Tseng inhales quietly, gaze cutting over to a sleeping Reno. “Not often… that one of us gets a ticket outside.”

“I need to go with him,” Rude goes on. “I need to make sure that _no one_ finds him ever again. Tseng, if they take him back, you know what they’ll do to him. A blank slate like this is perfect material for Hojo.”

Tseng pulls a phone out from his back pocket. “I’m fairly certain there’s a clause in our contracts about it.”

Rude lets his breath out through clenched teeth. 

“Elena is in the car downstairs with a bag,” Tseng says. He looks back up at Rude, hand held over a call button. “You will have exactly one chance to leave and never come back. If you hesitate, they’ll catch up. They might not care about losing Reno anymore, but you have living memories of Shinra. And if they catch you, it won’t be a friend who drags you home.”

Rude looks at the green call icon on the phone, at Tseng’s practiced and careful gaze, and back at Reno, sleeping like a baby through their hushed chatter.

“We can’t risk going anywhere loyal to Shinra, _or_ anywhere with an itchy trigger finger against them. If one person knows either of us, we’re done. Warm weather won’t be ideal, not with him so recognizable. We have to be careful while he heals.”

Tseng raises the phone to his ear, angling his body away to make a call. “Yes, it’s me. Remember when I asked you about contingency plans? Do you still have that safe house up north?”

Rude touches the foot of Reno’s bed, promising in his head to find some softer blankets when they land.

 _Whatever you want, I’ll find a way_.

When Tseng hangs up, he switches right over to texting someone, talking to Rude as he does. “I need to leave here immediately. I’m supposed to be wrapping up something in Sector Three, but Elena will put your bag in a secure location in the garage. Everything you need to get to Veld’s old safe house will be in there. It’s a long trip out, so make sure he’s stable enough for it. No sense in running if he dies on the way over.”

Rude grabs Tseng by the shoulder, knowing full well that there is no time for anything other than a face-to-face, “Thank you.”

Tseng nods, pocketing his phone to tell Rude, “Don’t waste this. For our sake and his.”

Rude lets him go, and Tseng leaves as quickly and quietly as he came.

Spared from Shinra’s shadow for one more day.

-

There is no time for Rude to dwell on the fact that he may never see Tseng or Elena ever again. No time to tell Elena how well she’s done, how he’ll miss those quiet moments, watching her get impatient while they play cards, talking in hushed whispers about the emotions they swore off when they took this job. Rude was the only one she was able to tell about her soft spot for Tseng, how she prayed it wouldn’t get her killed on the job.

And he told her with all too much empathy how he knew exactly what she felt. 

They didn’t know each other all that long, and yet, she is every inch his sister, as if they’d been raised together. She understood the weakness as well as the strength they carried.

Tseng and Reno burned that part of themselves away. Tseng did so the day he was promoted to the head of the Turks. Reno did it before Rude ever met him.

Reno once confessed to Rude that he wasn’t sure he knew how a human heart was supposed to work. Everyone else seemed to go so automatic, but there were things that just never made sense to Reno. He always tried to make a joke out of it, and for the sake of their own sanity, Rude let him. 

Maybe that was Rude’s first mistake.

Moving Reno out of the hospital with a head wound and amnesia certainly isn’t an easy choice, but it’s the _only_ one left. 

Reno is hardly lucid when Rude nudges him awake. He waited as long as he could to let the wound heal a little more, but even that was too long. With the bag Elena left for him, he dresses himself in plain clothes and passes an outfit over for Reno.

“Hey, sorry, it’s time to go.”

Reno’s eyes are full of medicine. “Go where?”

“Somewhere safe,” Rude says, pushing the pile of clothes closer.

Reno puts his hand on the fabric, eyes stuck half-open. “Am I in trouble?”

“Not if you keep up with me,” Rude says and Reno gives a pained laugh at that.

“Thought I was supposed to stay here for like, a week?” Reno asks, though he pulls the clothes onto his lap. “You know, loose skull or whatever.”

Rude does everything he can to keep his voice calm. “I’m taking you somewhere you won’t have to worry about deadlines. That way you can take as much time as you need to get better.”

Reno rubs at his eyes, winces again, and Rude can’t stop himself from taking a step toward him. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, you know,” Reno gives him a pained smile, pointing upwards. “Just the gunshot to the head.”

Rude nods and backs away as Reno starts shuffling into his new clothes. Going back to the bag to check out their new supplies, committing the location of the safe house to memory, fake ID’s, the exact amount of cash they were able to secure, a horde of almost-definitely-illegal pain medication, everything catalogued and ready to go. The last piece is the compact Elena tucked into the bag. He takes it over to Reno with what he hopes is an apologetic look.

“One more thing and then we’ll be on our way,” Rude says. He pulls his chair up to start gently pressing makeup over Reno’s tattoos. He does the right one first, further from the wound, keeping his touch as light as he can. 

“I don’t like this place,” Reno says, and his throat sounds dry. He’s staring out at nothing again. “Smells weird. People keep looking at me like I’m gonna bite them.”

Rude switches over to the left tattoo, scared for a moment that Reno will shatter into pieces when he presses. “Sorry if this hurts.”

Reno just gives the slightest shake of his head, and if it feels bad, Reno does a good job of hiding it. It’s not a perfect cover-up by any stretch, but it’s enough for Reno to pass as someone else with a beanie on.

“There’s no way I’m just some guy, right?” Reno asks, voice heavy as Rude arranges as much of that bright red hair out of sight as he can. Reno catches Rude’s eye, the first little piece of anxiety clouding his gaze. “Why else would you be asking about Shinra? Trying to move me against doctor’s orders?” 

Rude tugs the hat down, tucking another strand underneath it. “If you trust me for the next twenty four hours, you can be whoever you want to be. I promise you that. No doctors, no Shinra, no questions. We’ll get you back on your feet.”

Reno studies him with some of his old questioning curiosity, the kind he had whenever they were given a job with euphemistic intentions, but then it clears up and he laughs a little. “My breath is fucking terrible.”

Rude stands up and offers his arm. “Trust me, I’ve dealt with worse.”

-

The next day is possibly the worst day Rude has ever lived. Keeping Reno in the perfect balance of just enough painkillers to curb the ache but not enough that he’s passing out in public, keeping himself as steady as possible so Reno doesn’t panic and no one questions them on their move. He becomes a stone, guiding Reno through with as much authority as he can muster. The illegal channels to get off the coast aren’t who he’s worried about. It’s every civilian between Midgar and the snowy town they're headed to that scares him. 

You’re either with Shinra or you hate them, and Reno didn’t exactly have friends outside the company. Not to mention every hour Reno spends upright and awake, Rude grows more anxious that he’ll damage Reno even worse. 

They don’t talk much for the trip. Reno looks like he’s hardly able to string words together most of the time, whether it’s the pain or the drugs, but as they’re on a ferry crossing the ocean to another continent, Reno falls asleep with his head on Rude’s shoulder. Again, that peace falls over him, and Rude accepts that he’d do just about anything to make sure Reno doesn’t have to worry ever again.

Even this— huddled in a tiny, crowded passenger boat, swaying with every wave, the echo of a crying child somewhere out of sight— is better than what Shinra would have done to them. 

Rude just hopes Reno doesn’t hold these bumps against him.

The cars and buses and vans they get rides in are a little worse. Reno spends the last leg of their journey through blindingly bright snowy pathways with his face buried in Rude’s chest to keep the light out. He stopped speaking hours back and now he just quietly groans whenever the car rattles.

“He okay?” The driver asks at one point. 

Rude meets his flickering gaze in the rearview mirror. “He’ll be fine.”

It’s just a moment that they’re looking at each other, but Rude sees something he doesn’t like in the driver’s expression. Something a little too distrustful. But then Reno makes a noise and Rude distracts himself from the reality that they’re at the mercy of this stranger by offering Reno water and pills.

“Think I hate the snow,” Reno mutters as he presses his face back to the front of Rude’s sweatshirt. 

Rude holds Reno there with a hand on the back of Reno’s neck, leaning down to whisper out of earshot of the driver, “One thing we know about you, now.”

Those hushed laughs Reno gives are the only good moments on this whole excursion. Rude spends the rest of the drive trying to watch the driver without appearing like he’s watching the driver, paranoid that they’ll be taken off course to somewhere secluded, or worse, to a Shinra base. He doesn’t want to use that gun in the bottom of their duffle bag, but it’s there for a reason. 

Assurance.

When the sun goes down, Reno relaxes from his huddle, mumbling to Rude about a nonsense dream he had. It’s half-garbled talk, but Rude listens to every word. 

He’ll remember, even if Reno doesn’t.

Rude is on a razor’s edge of sanity when they get to the entrance of the town. The driver doesn’t take them all the way to the house, leaving them at the sign post with a bullshit excuse about being late somewhere else. Rude just hitches Reno onto his back and walks them the rest of the way in shoes much too thin for snow. 

It’s worth it to get to Veld’s old safe house. As Rude digs out the keys to the place from the duffle, it starts to snow. He sees it dotting over his sleeves as finds the metal ring with numbed fingers. The relief he feels when he gets them inside is only temporary as he remembers the driver. 

_Not safe just yet._

Rude spends an hour with Reno in the bathroom, running the shower until the room is full of steam, helping him out of his day old clothes so he can wash off, apologizing as he offers his own arm into the water to make sure Reno stays on his feet, new clothes, and finally, new bandages. 

“How’s it look up there?” Reno sounds like he’s talking with a mouth full of sand, body sagging under his own exhaustion. 

Rude secures the new wraps in place around Reno’s head. “Miraculously, it looks okay. Though I will be getting rid of that bloody hat.”

“Damn,” Reno’s eyes are shut again. “Was kinda warming up to it.”

“Let’s get you to bed,” Rude says, easing Reno back into his arms. “It’s alright now. Sleep as much as you can.”

“We’re good?” Reno asks.

“Yes,” Rude tells him, setting him down on the double bed that takes up most of the space in the bedroom. 

“Still haven’t told me your name,” Reno mumbles, melting into the covers.

“I did,” Rude says, pulling his ponytail aside, wondering if they’ll have to cut that. “You just didn’t believe me.”

Reno gives a hoarse laugh. “Shit, really?”

“I’ll tell you in the morning,” Rude promises. 

Reno passes out like a switch flipped and Rude takes the duffle bag into the living room, pulls a chair up across from the front door, and waits.

-

The trip undoubtedly sets Reno back in his recovery, and he spends the next couple of days firmly in bed, except when Rude gets him up to eat and gives him meds or checks on the wound. By the time Reno comes back around to talking, Rude has stocked the house with essentials so they don’t have to risk showing their faces for a while.

Not that Reno complains. He seems to know that he shouldn’t be leaving.

“Hope I don’t… drive you crazy,” Reno says as Rude checks him over on the edge of the bed.

Rude just shakes his head. “Only thing that’ll drive me crazy is if you scratch at your bandage.”

Another tired laugh from Reno gives Rude a spark of hope that maybe this will be okay.

“Alright, it may not be morning, but you owe me your name,” Reno says.

Rude nods, setting the extra gauze on the bedside table. “Guess so.”

“I tried to remember what you said but.” Reno shrugs. “Sorry. Still got holes in my memory.”

Rude looks at those blue eyes, foggy from sleep, but less pained, less stressed. Clouds on their way out.

“My name is Rude,” he says. “Though, you might not want to call me that around other people.”

Reno smiles. “No shit. They’ll think I’m insulting you.”

Rude drops his gaze, rising back up to his feet as he realizes he’d still been holding on to some infinitesimal chance that Reno would hear that name and remember something. The knife passes clean through as he knows there’s no going back.

“That’s not your real name, is it?” Reno asks, still on the cusp of laughing.

Rude scratches at the facial hair that he hasn’t had time or care to shave. “More real than any other name I’ve had.”

Reno considers that, laying back down, though his eyes are still open. “Guess I’m a little jealous. No name sounds real to me, yet.”

His gaze follows Rude around the room as Rude tries to figure out what to do with himself. 

“Do you know my name?” Reno asks him. “Whatever I used to go by?”

“Of course,” Rude says, giving up and sitting down in the lone armchair at the foot of the bed. “It was written on the emergency room bracelet I cut off your wrist before we left.”

“Ah, right,” Reno laughs. “Well, what was it?”

Rude leans his forearms onto his thighs. “Don’t worry about who you used to be. If you’re just trying to match yourself up to an old photo, you won’t be satisfied.”

Reno turns onto his side to look at Rude. “Listen, that’s a real smart metaphor, but I got nothing. I’m… not real. You’re all I got here. It’s too much pressure to name myself, and I want you to call me _some_ thing. I don’t wanna be empty air.”

Rude can’t stop himself from huffing out a barely audible laugh. “Trust me. I carried you through the snow. You’re at _least_ a hundred pounds more than empty.”

Reno laughs louder and immediately curls in on himself, eyes twitching at the pain. “Be less funny when my skull’s still putting itself back together.”

“I’ll try,” Rude says, even though he knows he’s already in too deep with that laugh. Every time he hears it, it sounds even nicer. 

Reno but different. Sunnier. Not the empty air he’s worried about.

“You need to eat,” Rude says, standing back up. 

_Take your own advice. Don’t dwell on it._

-

It takes a few days for Reno to ask why Rude is sleeping in the armchair in the living room. 

“I need to make sure you heal up,” Rude says. “Can’t have anything disturbing your wound.”

They’re sitting at the tiny table shoved into the corner of the kitchen.

“What, do you kick and punch in your sleep?” Reno asks, spoon clicking against his bowl. 

Rude’s mouth opens before he’s got a response. “I don’t… think so. But it’s not worth the risk, regardless.”

Reno starts laughing again. “You’re gonna give yourself neck problems if you keep sleeping in that chair. There’s a couch there too, ya know.”

“It’s not big enough,” Rude says automatically. _Can’t see the door from there anyway._ “Don’t worry about it.”

Reno watches him, eyes slightly narrowed. “Anything exciting happen while I was asleep?”

“No,” Rude says. “It seems like we found a pretty boring place for your physical therapy”

“Wait, what? I gotta work?” Reno searches Rude’s eyes.

“Unfortunately,” Rude tells him. “We have to make sure your motor functions are intact, that the surgery didn’t erase anything important to your—”

Reno raises his hands up. “I was joking. Sorry. Just trying to figure you out, Rude.”

“Sorry,” Rude says. “I guess I’m still adjusting.”

“You look exhausted,” Reno says, turning back to his cereal. “I’m not the doctor here, but if I had to venture a guess…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rude indulges a small smile. “I hear you. I’ll sleep, it’s alright.”

“So how exactly does this work?” Reno asks. “I probably can’t pay you, and I’m guessing you’re gonna say I can’t work, and this little, uh, oasis only has a limited supply of everything. What happens when we run out?”

“Priority goes to making sure you can walk around without suddenly losing consciousness or your balance,” Rude says to him, so easily returning to that work-mode conversation. “So the first thing you’re going to do is promise me that you’ll take this recovery seriously.”

He looks right at Reno, waiting, and Reno starts laughing. “Shit, okay, okay. I’ll be the best patient you’ve ever treated.”

Rude nods. “Once I’m sure you’re okay to be on your own, I’ll figure out our next move. But we should have plenty of time before it’s necessary. We’re set up for a while.”

Reno nods. “Alright, then. What do I do during all this?”

“You…” Rude keeps his gaze on the rest of his food. “I want you to figure out who you are. Not who you were before. Who you are now.”

“Wow, jeez, give me something harder next time,” Reno says.

He’s smirking, and Rude can’t look for too long. Like staring directly at the sun. 

“One step at a time,” Rude says.

With Reno on his feet, Rude watches him like a hawk to make sure his balance is okay. Reno starts poking through every inch of the cabin until he finds the drop down set of stairs that lead to an ice cold attic. It’s full of random things, entertainment to pass the time in a situation just like theirs. The board games make Rude wonder if this place was intended for Veld and his family. 

Rude is grateful for the prospect of Reno having something to do on his own. Every conversation is getting harder for him not to slip up and say something he shouldn’t, and besides, he needs to put more distance between them.

What’s the point of letting Reno be his own person if Rude can’t let him go? There will inevitably come a point when they have to go their own way. Rude will anchor him to the past, after all.

Of course, that night as Rude is sitting in his armchair, duffel bag with the gun at his feet, planning out exactly how to structure their days to let Reno have as much time to himself as Rude can manage, Reno interrupts him.

“You’re not even sleeping,” Reno says from the doorway to the bedroom. “Who do you think is looking for us?”

Rude turns to him with swollen, sleepless eyes. “I don’t want you to worry.”

“What part of you forcing yourself not to sleep so you can watch the door isn’t worrying?” Reno deadpans and Rude lets his breath out. 

“Either someone’s on their way, or they’re not,” Reno says, shuffling over in a sweatshirt far too big for him. “You really think one sleep deprived man and his amnesiac ward is gonna have much of a chance?”

Rude looks at the front door one more time, locked and deadbolted, and then back at Reno. He’s glad that Reno doesn’t look angry or scared, just tired. Rude must look worse.

“I’ll feel better if you sleep,” Reno says, and Rude caves.

“Fine, fine.” Rude stands up and before he can even think to deal with the bag or the gun, Reno grabs Rude’s arm to pull him along.

“You’re gonna start fucking up my doses if you don’t get your rest,” Reno says.

“I’m… pretty tired, yeah,” Rude admits. 

Reno closes the bedroom and points at the bed. “You’re not allowed out until you’ve slept eight hours.”

Rude sinks down onto the edge of the bed. 

“And don’t argue with me,” Reno says, taking the other side. “It’ll make my head hurt.”

Rude waits until Reno settles under the covers before he slides in too. The bed is just big enough for them not to touch, thankfully. The second his head hits the pillow, everything starts to fade. He breathes deep as his back starts to untense, and every aching night he’s had in that chair begins to catch up with him.

“I can hear your bones cracking,” Reno teases and Rude shakes his head, unable to open his eyes. 

“Happy?” Rude asks.

“Yeah,” Reno says. 

Rude smiles before he can help it. “Good.”

 _Let me do the hard things for you_.

He hears Reno shuffling around under the sheets, and pictures him getting comfortable. If all Rude has to do is make this place livable, he can do that.

When Reno speaks again, it’s a whisper in his ear. “Rude?”

“Hm?” he’s on autopilot with that quiet voice.

“What’s my name?”

“Reno.” 

He says it the same way he’s been saying it for years. The same way he’ll always say it, no matter how hard he tries.

-

It’s so obvious that Rude knows him. 

Reno— not the name he expected— can see it so clearly in the way Rude reacts to him. It was so easy to talk to him right away, and the fact that Rude has known what to do from the moment Reno woke up is both a comfort, and a tell.

As soon as they settle into anything resembling familiarity, Rude wedges a space back between them. And whenever Reno tries to push it away, something like sadness starts bleeding into Rude’s expression. 

At least Rude calls him by a name now. Every time he says it, _Reno_ , it’s the most comfortable thing he’s heard since waking up in a hospital bed. At the same time, Reno starts to feel guilty. For as obvious as it is that Rude knows who Reno used to be, it’s also clear that Rude doesn’t want to acknowledge it. 

_He lost something too._

As soon as Reno put that together, he stopped pressing on the past, and started pressing on Rude instead. 

No more sleeping in the arm chair, no more creeping around Reno, no more treating him like a porcelain doll. If they can’t be friends, they can at least be equals.

Reno does notice that Rude seems to be most at ease when he knows what he’s supposed to be doing. He relaxes around their meals, their medical check-ins, things with time limits and expectations. Reno starts looking forward to dinner because he gets to be conscious for the whole process, and the house is simply better when Rude lets down his guard.

But it’s hard to get him to stay that way. 

For lack of anything else to do, Reno starts trying to read through all the books in the attic, but he quickly hits a wall in the form of his vision scrambling and his brain aching if he stares at the text for too long. 

Rude catches him reading with one eye squinted one day and pulls the book from Reno’s hands.

“What’s going on?”

“Hey, don’t lose my place,” Reno says, lurching forward.

Rude dutifully dogs ears the page and sits on the coffee table. “Does it hurt to read?”

Reno sighs, not because of the pain, but because of the serious look on Rude’s face. “Yeah. Makes my eyes go all weird. Like I’m losing track of the letters after a while.”

Rude’s brows furrow. “That’s not good.”

Reno laughs. “Yeah, right? I’m about to get _real_ bored around here.”

“Reno,” Rude says, and even in that chiding tone, Reno kind of likes it. It’s a good sound, at least when Rude says it.

“I know, I know, you’re monitoring my brain,” Reno rushes. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I was just… trying to figure out who did it. T-the crime, in the book. It’s a pretty good story.”

Rude gives one of his I-don’t-want-to-laugh laughs as he looks at the cover. 

_What’s missing for you?_

“Can you… would you mind reading? For me? To me.” Reno starts shaking his head. “Nah, nevermind, that’s annoying. I’ll figure something else out.”

Rude looks at him, and there’s a spark in his brown eyes. Not the familiarity he’s been fighting, something new. Lightning.

“You want me to read to you?” Rude asks.

Reno shrugs. “D’you like mysteries?”

Rude thumbs the book open and his gaze softens as he looks at the pages. “I guess we’ll find out.”

Falling asleep to the sound of someone’s voice makes Reno realize how much he likes _noise_. 

The next day is the beginning of a new routine. Now that he doesn’t need bandages, Rude swaps out cleaning the wound for something else. A piece of paper with a drawn-on grid.

“What’s going on here, doc?” Reno asks as he sits across from Rude at their table.

“We’re playing a game,” Rude says, passing him a pencil. “To test your cognitive function.”

Reno takes up the pencil with a feeling like carbonation in his chest. “This is work I can get behind.”

Rude’s mouth is just barely turned up at the corner. 

They start easy, tic-tac-toe, which Reno tries to tease Rude about, until he loses five times in a row. When Reno demands a new game, Rude tells him that the rule is that Reno has to beat him first before they can move on. Even though Reno knows this is part of his recovery, he doesn’t mind at all. The push and pull of their conversation has so much more energy around it, like this was what they should have been doing from the start. 

They stop when Reno gets a headache, and as they’re drifting back apart, Reno feels that energy dissipating, and it makes him claustrophobic. 

“H-hey, uh, maybe later we can pick up on that book?” he asks, pulling the sleeves of his sweatshirt over his hands. 

Rude nods as he gets up from the table. “Sure. I’m running into town for a minute, I’ll be back soon, alright?”

“Sure,” Reno says, leaning his arms on the back of the kitchen chair as Rude drifts toward the front door. “That means I’m improving, right? Or I’m talking your ear off so bad, you need a minute of peace.”

Rude tugs a black hat over his head, shrugging his coat on. “You are definitely improving.”

That’s all he says before leaving, and Reno spends far too long trying to figure out why he didn’t respond to Reno’s comment about needing peace.

_Guess he does need it._

It’s entirely too easy for Reno to find himself sitting somewhere and _thinking_ the time away. Even small questions can lead him down endless trains of thought. His brain spirals so quickly with every black hole in his memory. He can almost feel the empty shelves where information used to be stored. Like he’s trapped wearing baggy clothes that were meant for someone else. Someone much bigger than him.

When Rude comes back, he knocks on the door. Well, _knocking_ is generous. Reno scrambles out of the kitchen chair at the loud thumping, rushing to open up as he realizes Rude must be carrying something in both arms. 

“Where’s the fire?” Reno asks. 

Rude hauls a massive box inside, and Reno shuts the door behind him.

“Not sure if it’ll work,” Rude says as he goes right to the living room. “It was cheap.”

Reno watches him unearth a television that even Reno can tell is outdated. “Nice.”

Rude futzes with it for a couple minutes before Reno offers to help and suddenly they’re repairing it together. Rude has the back of it cracked open, messing with something and he mutters, “Wish I had the damn magrod.”

And Reno says, “Sorry? Is that a normal thing with household repairs?”

“Ah, no,” Rude shakes his head. “A weird thing from my old job.”

“What was your old job?” Reno asks. He’s sitting on the floor with the manual open on his knee. 

“Nothing pretty,” Rude says, staring intently at the guts of the TV. “I like this one better.”

“Really?” Reno asks, watching his eyes. “You’re not bored?”

Rude is too damn good at keeping his face blank. “No.”

“Where’d you learn medicine?” Reno asks. “In Midgar?”

“Yeah.”

“You go to school for it?” Reno asks.

“No,” Rude says. “It was a bit of an accident. Used to be that we had a medic on staff, but when the department got restructured, she left and I picked up the slack.”

“Really? Your boss just said, hey you, learn how to stitch people up?” Reno leans his back to the wall, gaze sliding over Rude’s shoulders and arms and hands. He looks in his element when he’s fixing stuff up. Not too different a look from when he’s treating Reno.

Rude almost smiles, sealing something with electrical tape. “I asked to learn. I… I had a partner. And he liked to get himself scratched up. It just made sense for me to be the one to learn it.”

Reno’s brows cinch. “Did something happen to him?”

“Yeah,” Rude says. “He got a ticket out. Try turning it on.”

Reno crawls around to the front of the TV and hits the power switch. A light turns on, the screen slowly brightening, and he throws his hands up. 

“You really _are_ a jack-of-all-trades, huh?”

Rude looks pleased with himself as he stands again. “The real test is seeing if anything is worth watching.”

Reno spends the rest of the day flipping through the channels they get, catching bits and pieces of shows and movies and games. It’s shockingly easy to just sit there and _absorb_ everything. He manages to watch most of a movie, and even with the slight static distortion of the old screen, he’s glued to it. 

When the credits roll, the first thing he does is start talking to Rude in the kitchen about everything he just saw. Even though he knows this probably isn’t interesting to Rude, the words spill out of him anyway. And Rude just listens, leaning up against the counter, nodding along.

Reno sees the green-lit numbers on the oven clock and smirks, “Man, you let me talk you past dinner time.”

“Oh, sorry,” Rude startles. “Lost track of time.”

“Can I help?” Reno asks. “Or do you not trust me with a knife?”

Rude gives him vegetables and a peeler. “Let’s start with this.”

The whole evening feels lighter and Reno knows it’s because Rude isn’t pacing or trying to avoid Reno or cataloguing supplies _again_. He talks back that night, more than usual, and Reno feels spoiled from all the sound, even with the headache he got from squinting at the TV.

When the food is cleaned up and Rude runs Reno through one more set of pencil-and-paper games, he asks Rude to keep reading to him.

“It’s kinda late,” Rude starts.

“Where do we have to be in the morning?” Reno asks, brow raised.

And Rude concedes. “Fine. But in bed, though. So I won’t have to carry you over there when you fall asleep in ten minutes.”

Reno just laughs. “Alright, you have a point.”

Sitting up in bed like that is _not_ something they’ve done, though. Reno is almost always already settled by the time Rude finds his way under the covers, and Rude always gets up first. There’s something awkward about sitting down at the exact same time, though Reno can’t quite say what it is. Rude just picks the book up and starts reading, legs stretched out over the covers. 

Reno thinks about leaning against Rude’s shoulder, but he knows he’d be tempted to try and read along, and that would only make his head hurt, so he slides down to try to get comfortable, but it’s weird with his face next to Rude’s hip. Wriggling down the sheets, Reno puts his head on Rude’s thigh, and Rude’s voice cuts off.

“Aw, keep going,” Reno says, smiling at him upside down. “There’s a murder to solve.”

Rude lifts the book up higher to meet his gaze briefly, before continuing on with the story. By the time the chapter ends, Reno’s on the verge of passing out, hugging Rude’s leg with both arms. He hears Rude set the book aside, and feels fingers in his hair, right where the wound used to be.

“Does it hurt?” Rude asks, his deep voice just a whisper.

“No,” Reno says. “Feels kinda nice…”

Rude gently combs his hand through Reno’s hair. “The red is growing out. You think you’ll dye it again?”

Reno gives a slight shrug. “You tell me what looks better.”

Rude flattens his hand to Reno’s head. “Are you comfortable like this?”

“Yeah,” Reno says. 

“You… Do you not like being by yourself?” Rude asks next.

Reno shakes his head a little. “Why be alone when you’re right here?”

The warmth of Rude’s hand cupped to Reno’s head feels like permission to fall asleep and Reno is _right_ there, getting pulled into a dream, when an awful cracking sound, followed by a heavy _thump,_ startles them both from outside.

Reno’s heart constricts, eyes flying, but Rude goes stock still. Reno watches Rude’s eyes fix on the window, fingers tightening over Reno’s head. Five ringing seconds tick by and then Rude moves Reno off of him, and wordlessly rushes into the living room.

“Rude?” Reno whispers harshly. 

Rude merely signals with a hand for Reno to stay, trying to shut the bedroom door but he’s moving too quickly and it doesn’t quite latch. Panic sweeps down Reno’s skin, and he gets out of bed, pushing the door back open just enough to see Rude crossing the living room with a gun in his hand.

Fear solidifies under Reno’s tongue, watching Rude unlock the front door and slip outside. He’s silent as the grave when he wants to be, and Reno can tell this is something he’s done before. 

Stupid, yeah, but he goes after Rude. Jamming his feet into the shoes he’s had no reason to wear since they got here, Reno walks outside into the dark. He’s not okay with it, not okay with Rude trying to risk his life. They should both be inside. 

Fuck, Rude is out of sight. Reno can’t hear anything over the wind and the cold is starting to burn his hands. He feels like an idiot standing several feet in front of the open doorway in shoes that were never meant to protect against snow, but he can’t go back inside until he knows. 

He wants to yell but that’s even dumber, so he stands there, freezing, until he sees movement. 

Reno is searching through the tree line for a silhouette, but Rude seems to appear out of nowhere, like a shadow taking solid form in front of him. “What are you doing?”

“Waiting for you, dumbass,” Reno says. “It’s cold, come back inside.”

Teeth chattering, Reno grabs Rude’s hand and pulls him into the house. Rude looks half-numb as Reno locks the door and kicks his shoes off again. 

“Come on,” Reno says, grabbing Rude’s bicep. “Boots.”

Rude blinks and seems to remember where they are. He shuffles forward and pries his shoes off too. Reno peels his own dampened sweater off and takes Rude’s hand again.

“Your clothes are wet, come on.”

Rude just follows after him until he’s back in the bedroom and then something sparks in his eyes. He pulls the gun back out from the waist of his pants and when Reno looks right at him, Rude just mumbles, “Sorry.” 

Wherever Rude puts it, Reno doesn’t see. He just waits for Rude to come back so he can make him change into dry clothes. When Rude is in sweatpants and a long sleeved shirt, Reno watches him come to a stop by the bed, standing there like he lost his chain of command. So Reno sinks down and snags Rude’s arm.

“Come on. What was it?”

Rude finally sits in bed with his legs arched, stiffness through his whole body. “Just a stag.”

“That’s good,” Reno says. “Right?”

Rude barely nods, eyes unfocused. Reno hates this strange discomfort on Rude, like he’s not really in this room at all. So he touches Rude’s arm, softly at first, scared of scaring him. When Rude doesn’t react, Reno pulls Rude’s arm aside and slides in closer, forcing Rude to make room for Reno in his lap.

“Why do you think people are after us?” Reno asks with his face on Rude’s shoulder.

It takes him a couple seconds, but Rude untenses his legs, straightening them out. “Not people. Shinra.”

“You said it was their fault I got shot,” Reno says, fingers bunching up Rude’s shirt. “Do you know what happened?”

Rude’s arms shift forward like he wants to touch Reno, but he decides against it, lowering his hands to the bed. “Yes.”

“You knew who I was, right?” Reno asks.

Rude sighs at that and Reno feels all the air leaving Rude’s chest. “Yes.”

“What was it, then?” Reno presses quietly. “Did I steal from them? Piss someone off?”

“ _I_ stole from them,” Rude says. “I pissed them off.”

Reno’s brows furrow. “You don’t really seem the antagonistic type.”

Rude’s laugh is all nervous breath. “They wanted you back. But I couldn’t let them have you again. I couldn’t… just stand there… again.”

Slowly, Rude’s arms cinch around Reno’s body tighter and tighter until he’s clutching Reno to his chest. 

“I just want you to be able to put this behind you.”

Even with the hiss of emotion in Rude’s voice, Reno can’t deny how good it feels to be held so shamelessly.

“I want you to be able to move on, away from this isolation. Away from anything that might hurt you.”

Reno slides his arms around Rude’s back, picking his head up so he can rest his cheek against Rude’s.

“Do you think you’re gonna hurt me?” Reno asks.

Rude dips his head, taking a shaky breath. 

“I don’t buy that for a second,” Reno tells him. “You’ve been nothing but nice to me, and I like the way you say my name, so don’t go acting like you have to save me from yourself. I’ll tell you if I get tired of you.”

Rude nods against him, taking a deeper breath.

Reno touches Rude’s head, pulling back to look him in the eye. “I like you better with gauze than a gun.”

Rude exhales, gaze softening. “I’m sorry.”

Reno leans his forehead back against Rude’s shoulder. “You’re a pretty good cook too.”

Rude huffs out a laugh. “Thanks.”

“Go to bed,” Reno says, not moving an inch.

“Alright.” 

Rude just settles down with Reno tucked to his chest, like he’s trying to keep Reno warm.

-

It gets easier after that, to touch Reno. To look at him more openly. Even though there’s still a voice in the back of Rude’s mind that tells him that Reno will be better off without Rude, the rest of him is enamored with the way Reno _lives_. How light he walks when the only thing he has to worry about is what they’re going to eat for dinner.

It does still hurt a little when he sees so plainly how much Reno likes to be near Rude. The old Reno kept himself so guarded. It makes Rude wonder if this was buried there all along. The Reno who naturally finds himself leaning up against Rude at every opportunity. 

Reno’s eyes are clearer than ever.

One night when Rude is standing at the sink washing dishes, Reno snakes up under Rude’s arm to wedge himself between Rude and the counter, arms looped around Rude’s waist.

“These mountains just get colder and colder, huh?” Reno asks, face nuzzled to Rude’s neck.

“Yeah…” Rude sets down the pan he’d been cleaning and dries his hands. “Let’s go somewhere warm.”

Reno’s head pops right up, eyes bright. “Wait, really?”

Rude nods, pushing some of Reno’s hair aside to look at the scar on his forehead. “Yeah. You’re doing fine. And we’ll need money eventually. If I’m going to work, I’d rather be warm while doing it.”

Reno laughs. “You’ve convinced me. I don’t think I was built for the cold.”

Rude nods. “One more thing we know about you.”

Reno just settles right back to hugging Rude and Rude goes back to washing dishes. At least he can pretend for a little longer that this isn’t _just_ because Reno doesn’t have anyone else. He’ll take the warmth here while he needs it.

Rude starts researching and preparing that night: the best city to go to, how much money they’ll need, how much time he can buy them before they’re bleeding resources, how likely he is to get a job on a fake ID and no work history.

Reno starts teasing with demands, head in Rude’s lap. _We need a pool, or a beach, a hammock, fresh fruit, good TV shows._ But he never asks for his own room.

Rude thinks he might drown in this new ocean, but it’s worth it to put Reno back in the sun.

-

The day they’re set to leave, Rude goes rigid. Again, he fears they’ll be recognized, but he knows deep down that Reno needs this. He needs normalcy. Not to be trapped inside all day with someone who can’t stop thinking about worst case scenarios.

He leaves the gun behind, though. 

As soon as they’re on the move, Reno peaks over at him and laughs. “Look alive. We’re gonna be warm soon.”

Rude just nods, unable to shut off the suspicion he has of everyone around them, until Reno leans into him and asks, “Where are you from, anywhere? Like, where were you born?”

“Little north of Junon,” he says.

“Yeah? What’s Junon like?”

Reno keeps him talking the whole way there, always touching Rude, keeping him anchored to that different-yet-familiar voice. 

It doesn’t quite feel real, sneaking their way onto a plane with forged identities, not turning a single head the whole way. Reno’s not even wearing a hat this time, just has his long hair tied up in a knot at the base of his head. He did cover his tattoos, but he still looks so much like _Reno_ , Rude’s shocked no one sees through it.

Maybe it’s the way Reno walks. Excited to see a new place, start a new thing, meet new people. This couldn’t possibly be someone from Shinra, someone with that much life in their eyes.

As soon as they’re back on solid ground, walking through a neighborhood of cramped, faded houses, it starts to set in. This is the real test, to see if they can both go unnoticed. If there’s a real life to be had for both of them, or just Reno. 

When they get to the place they’re looking for, a young man stands out front, hands in his pockets. Rude knows it’s more than likely the guy he bought the keys off of, but standing in front of him face-to-face with Reno right there has Rude tensing up.

“You here for the house?” the guy asks.

“Yeah,” Rude says. He sets his bag down to fish out his fake ID, but the guy just holds out a keyring.

“Let me know if anything breaks,” he says. 

Rude takes the keys, a little dumbstruck. “Thank you.”

“Hey, yo, question,” Reno waltzes right up to the guy with a big smile on. “Any bookshops around here?”

The guy gives a gruff laugh, already on his way out. “It’s a mile into town. They got everything you need.”

As soon as he’s gone, Rude’s shoulders drop and Reno elbows him. “This is it, right? New home?”

 _No one cares_.

“Yeah,” Rude says. “This is it.”

-

No matter how hard Rude tries to let Reno detach from him, it never sticks. Reno comes drifting back, like a planet on a set course. 

Once he’s sure that no one recognizes them, Rude sends Reno into town on his own to grab something, and Reno comes home saying _next time, come with me. I gotta show you something I saw_. No matter how many people he meets, he circles back to Rude to share. Even though Rude can’t stop himself from feeling relieved each time, he knows he’s not trying hard enough.

So he finds Reno one night to talk. Rude sits on the bed across from the open window where Reno is perched in, book in hand.

“Your head okay?” Rude asks.

Reno nods, setting it on the floor. “I’m getting better at it.” 

“Good, that’s good.” Rude nods.

Reno’s brow raises. “You look like you got bad news.”

“No.” Rude scratches a hand over his head. “I just wanted to ask if you were bored. You could probably get away with a job, you know? If you’re tired of being stuck here.”

“Do we need money?” Reno asks immediately.

“No,” Rude says. “Really, it’s not about that. I just don’t want you to be… unhappy.”

Reno pulls himself up out of the window, staring at Rude like he’s not sure if he’s supposed to laugh. He pulls up the edge of his white t-shirt as he’s standing there, looking down at his own stomach. Rude frowns as Reno points at an old scar to the left of his navel. A knife wound that Rude remembers vividly.

“There are scars like this all over me,” Reno says. “Feels like I find a new one every time I shower. Obviously whoever was patching me up did a damn good job, my body works just fine but… No, I’m not unhappy getting to sit around and read. Kinda seems like whoever was driving before me did a lot of hard work already. Maybe he’d be happy to know that I get to be lazy now.”

“He would,” Rude says without thinking.

Reno rights his shirt. “You think so? I was kinda talking out of my ass.”

Rude nods. “I think he would. I think he knew… He knew what we all knew. There’s no clean way out of that line of work. And I can guarantee you, he didn’t expect to come back from what happened.”

“How do you know?” Reno asks, voice getting quieter. 

Rude takes a deep breath, looking at Reno’s eyes, trying to decide if it’s okay to say. “He took a bullet so I wouldn’t have to. I don’t think I’d ever seen him look so peaceful. Like all those scars were worth it.”

Reno’s lips are parted, eyes wide. 

“You don’t owe me anything,” Rude says to him. “I don’t want you to think that’s what this is. All I want is to make sure you don’t get any more scars.”

Reno’s expression starts to shift to something almost _angry_ and Rude doesn't know what to do when Reno takes Rude’s face in both hands, keeping their gazes locked.

“I am not your job anymore.”

Rude’s eyes flash with surprise. “N-no, I—”

“I know you probably don’t think about it like that, but listen to me.” He’s bringing their faces closer together. “No more protecting me. Got it? You think I can’t feel the wall you’re trying to build between us. I hate that wall. I want you in here with me, okay?”

Rude shuts his eyes, touching Reno’s side, not sure what he wants. “I put you there.”

“No you didn’t,” Reno touches their foreheads together. “You said it yourself when I woke up. It’s Shinra’s fault. Not yours. So take your own damn medicine and stop acting like this is your fault. I’m probably only alive because of you. We’re out here because of _you_. No more Shinra in this house, alright? You’re not with them anymore.”

Rude’s jaw tightens, his whole body leaning toward Reno. “I want to be inside with you too, I just don’t know if I can do that without holding you back.”

“Oh, shut up,” Reno says, laughing through it. “You don’t get to decide what hurts me.”

Rude exhales at that, hands light as he touches Reno’s hips. “Alright, I’ll give you that.”

Reno smooths his thumbs over Rude’s head. “Stop trying to force me out of the house.”

Rude nods against him. “Okay.”

“I have all of human history to catch up on,” Reno tells him. “If you need me to work, I will, but I like being here. I think I’m learning that deep, down I’m pretty lazy. So, if you’re giving me the chance to slow down, I’ll gladly take it.”

Rude finally smiles at that. “Good.”

“Maybe you can slow down too,” Reno says a little quieter. 

Rude squeezes Reno’s sides, not ready to put distance back between them. “I may need some help remembering how to do that.”

“I have time,” Reno says and Rude feels him holding tighter.

Rude echoes him with a deep breath in. “It’s not all bad, you know? It’s not as if I only feel grief around you.”

Reno tilts Rude’s head back a little more, their noses pressed in together. “Yeah?”

Rude keeps his eyes closed, feeling like he’s sitting in a sunspot. “Yes. The old Reno, he never would have let me this close. He had more walls up than I do. He knew that connections only made it harder. I always wondered what he’d look like if he ever had the chance to do something fun for the hell of it. No mission standing in the way, no collateral damage at stake. He never smiled the way you do.”

Reno takes a sharp breath in, caught on the edge of laughter. 

“He was stuck,” Rude says, hands sliding up Reno’s back. “He wouldn’t let himself feel anything more than he had to, but you are so… bright.”

Reno leans his mouth against Rude’s face, offset just enough that it doesn’t have to be a kiss. It could just be a touch. It could just be Reno’s bottom lip resting on Rude’s top lip. Rude could ignore his pulse roaring in his ears if he wanted to spare them a wall crumbling a little too soon. 

But of course, Reno moves in closer, slides his mouth over Rude’s, and there isn’t much of a question left. 

It seems, no matter what happens to him, Reno will always be the faster of the two of them. The thought makes Rude smile against Reno’s lips and Reno’s breath catches before he folds in closer, kissing Rude harder and Rude realizes with a jolt that _this is his first now_. 

Burying a hand into Reno’s hair, guiding him in closer by the waist, Rude opens his mouth and Reno follows his lead and _he tastes like summer. There’s lightning on his tongue._

Reno pulls back just to take a deep breath, laughing quietly as his arms loop around Rude’s neck. “Okay, I know what I want to learn next.”

Rude draws circles on Reno’s cheek with his thumb. “No need to rush. Isn’t that what you just said? Thought you were gonna show me how to slow down.”

Reno presses another kiss to Rude’s cheek. “I’m figuring out right at this exact moment that I’m very impatient. Possibly also greedy. Not sure I’ll be so good with the whole _slow_ thing. Sorry.”

Rude kisses across Reno’s jaw, listening to the way his breathing quickens, mouth falling open, like he can’t help it. He finds Reno’s bottom lip, tasting it once before giving him another kiss that Reno sighs through.

“We can save patience for another night,” Rude promises.

Reno nods, falling forward into him, and Rude gladly catches him.

If it’s a mistake, neither of them cares to say it. They’ll see it through together this time.

**Author's Note:**

> endless summer...
> 
> thanks for reading


End file.
